Apparatus for conveying articles and, in particular, articles supported on hooked members, are used in various industries. For example, articles conveyed in an assembly line are frequently supported on hooked members, wherein the hooked members are carried by a conveyor so that the articles can be used or worked on in the assembly line.
An important application of such systems is to be found in laundry and dry cleaning facilities, where the hooked members are hangers and the articles are garments supported on the hangers. In one proposed system, several hundred garments are placed on hangers and loaded onto a first sorting conveyor, where a pre-sort is done. The garments are then transferred to a second conveyor where a final sort is carried out.
The position of each garment on the sorting conveyor can be registered in a computer. The computer can then be used to prepare a specific sorting sequence for delivering the garments into the respective drop-off stations.
There are several drop-off stations located at various points along the sorting conveyor which are adapted to receive the garments prior to delivery to the customers. The garments are sorted by moving the sorting conveyors and by delivering each garment into a predetermined drop-off station. The sorted garments located at one or more drop-off stations are loaded into trucks for delivery to the customers.
Aspects of the design of conveyor systems, including sorting techniques, conveyor structure, and apparatus for loading and unloading articles onto and off of each conveyor are presented in the following U.S. patents assigned to the assignee of the instant invention. The entire contents of each of these patents is hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein, particularly for the aspects noted: U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,094, which teaches apparatus for unloading articles; U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,435, which provides teachings pertaining to the distribution of a randomly assorted group of articles; U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,201, which teaches a carrier assembly; U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,803, which teaches a device and method for retrieving articles; U.S. Pat. No. 5,269,402, which teaches a conveyor; U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,134, which teaches a computer control system; U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,686, which teaches article loading apparatus; U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,275, which teaches a conveyor; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,511, which teaches a computer control system for sorting articles. Still further details of a conveyor and computer control system for use with the instant invention are set forth in copending U.S. patent applications entitled "CONVEYOR SYSTEM WITH A COMPUTER CONTROLLED FIRST SORT CONVEYOR" and "SINGLE LATCH LOADER AND METHOD FOR LOADING", filed on even date herewith, and which are assigned to the same assignee as is the present invention, and which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference in their entirety herein.
The use of multiple conveyors to effect a multi-layered sort of articles is a more efficient means of providing the end user (typically a delivery truck on a fixed route) with a more fully sorted group of articles. The implementation of this strategy requires a means for transferring articles from one conveyor to another. The conveyors employed (and described in the aforecited patents) utilize computers to identify each article, and track its position as it progresses through the system. It is therefore necessary that the means for transferring articles from a first conveyor to a second conveyor respect the order in which the garments are released from one of the conveyors for additional sorting by another of the conveyors.
The second of the conveyors presents a number of spaces for accommodating articles from the first conveyor. Due to the nature of sorting, available spaces are not necessarily located in adjacent positions on the conveyor, and in any event may not be immediately available. It may, therefore, be necessary to provide a buffer space to temporarily accommodate a number of articles before they are transferred to an available space on the second conveyor. Hence, there is a need for means for transferring articles of clothing from a first conveyor to a second conveyor that also provides for a buffer space in which to store garments